Knowledge and Understanding of the World is split into six areas of development:
• Exploration and investigation
• Designing and making skills
• ICT
• Time
• Place
• Communities
These six areas aim to help your child develop the crucial knowledge, skills and understanding that help them make sense of the world around them.
Each area is taught through practical, first hand experiences which allow children to explore, investigate, try out ideas and modify what they have done. However, children will also learn through their self-initiated activities (their play).
Exploration and Investigation:
Children are naturally curious and often love to feel, taste, look at, listen to and smell objects around them. They enjoy finding out how things work or why things happen. They ask questions about what they see or do and they make up their own explanations for things that happen.
During the year we work towards these Early Learning
Goals for Exploration and Investigation:
• Investigate objects and materials using all their senses as appropriate.
• Find out about, and identify some features of living things, objects and events they observe.
• Look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change.
• Ask questions about why things happen and how things work.
At Nursery and school we provide a wide range of opportunities for your child to be a budding scientist both inside and outside. Below are just some of the things that we do:
• Sand and water exploration
• Paint mixing
• Weather observations
• Looking at materials – food, construction
• How things move – push, pull and twist
• Floating and sinking
• Seasonal walks to our wildlife area
• Mini beast life cycles
• Farm visits
• Watching our caterpillars grow and become butterflies
• Growing our own plants
What can you do at home to help?
• Look for seasonal changes in the garden.
• Talk about how food changes as you make it – jelly, chocolate, cakes etc.
• Have fun in the bath or sink finding things that float or sink.
• Visits to the beach, farm, woods etc and talk about materials you find there.
• Your garden will provide a huge amount of wildlife and exploration opportunities – finding where the woodlice and worms live, looking for snails and spiders etc.
• Encourage your child to ask questions and find out answers.
Designing and Making:
Children love to make things and find out how things work. They enjoy learning how to build towers and watch them fall down, or working out how pieces fit together. They begin to make models and modify or change their ideas if they do not work. They also need to learn some of the basic skills of how to use tools safely and competently.
During the year we work towards these Early Learning
Goals for Designing and Making:
• Build and construct with a wide range of objects, selecting appropriate resources, and adapting their work where necessary.
• Select the tools and techniques they need to shape, assemble and join materials they are using.
What do we do at Nursery and school:
• Encourage children to explore the different construction kits and to use them to make models.
• Teach children how to use scissors, staplers, cellotape, masking tape, hole punches, split pins, rulers and glue spreaders.
• We look at how objects work such as wheels, pop-ups.
• We teach a range of techniques such as tearing, folding, cutting, rolling, weaving.
• We begin to teach how to design using pictures and to talk through how they made their model, how it works and what they would do next time.
What can you do at home to help?
• Encourage and help your child to use scissors, staplers, cellotape etc.
• Talk to them about how things work – bottle opener, clock, etc.
ICT:
This is a rapid moving world where technology is concerned and children now need to be computer literate. They need to be able to see how technology around us works and helps us such as microwaves, audio systems, digital cameras, traffic lights and computers. Children need to learn how to use a computer and develop the basic skills.
During the year we work towards these Early Learning
Goals for ICT:
• Find out about and identify the uses of everyday technology and use information and communication technology and programmable toys to support their learning.
What do we do at school?
• Provide opportunities for children to see everyday technology at work such as video and television, audio equipment, cameras, scanners, telephones etc.
• We teach them how to use the listening station to listen to music or stories or to tape their own voices.
• We teach them how to use programmes on the computer and develop the basic skills of mouse control, clicking on icons or tools, using the keyboard.
• We use the internet or CD Roms to find out about areas of interest.
• We use digital cameras to record our work.
What can you do at home to help?
• Point out technology around your child – the dashboard on the car, the scanner at the shops, using a cash point machine.
• If you have a computer, help to develop mouse and keyboard skills.
• If you dare, let them take pictures with the camera or camcorder!!!!
• Show them how to use audio equipment.
Time and Place:
This area focuses on your child’s own history and environment before branching out to looking at the wider community and family. The past is quite difficult for young children to understand initially so we look at how they have changed from being a baby to now and then relate this to their family. Children begin to know where they live through walking to school or going into town. They become familiar with landmarks or places they visit frequently.
During the year we work towards these Early Learning
Goals for Time and Place:
• Find out about past and present events in their own lives, and in those of their families and other people they know.
• Observe, find out about and identify features in the place they live and the natural world.
• Find out about their environment, and talk about those features they like and dislike.
What do we do at Nursery and school?
• Provide opportunities for children to talk about themselves or what they have done at home.
• Use their ‘This is Me’ books to discuss themselves and their families.
• Introduce items from the past related to our topic.
• Go for seasonal walks around the school to notice changes in the environment.
• Look at different modes of transport.
• Read stories from around the world to encourage children to look at differences and similarities between where they live and the wider world.
What can you do at home to help?
• Talk about your family and your history.
• Go on seasonal walks or look for changes in the garden.
• Visit places and use different types of transport – get the bus into town or go on the train to London.
Communities:
We live in a multicultural society and children need to be aware of how other people live and the different celebrations that they have. We teach children to talk about significant events in their own lives and to begin to understand some of the emotions they have. This could be the death of a pet or the birth of a brother or sister. We look at how other people live within our own community and the beliefs that they may have. We try to teach children to respect others’ feelings and emotions and how people have different beliefs to our own.
During the year we work towards these Early Learning
Goals for Communities:
• Begin to know about their own cultures and beliefs and those of other people.
What do we do at Nursery and school?
• We start from each child’s own culture and beliefs and use this as a starting point to celebrate festivals and traditions.
• We encourage children to talk about significant events – being at a wedding, christening etc.
• We encourage children to bring in items or photographs from a special occasion.
• We teach about Christianity through bible stories of Noah’s ark and the friends of Jesus.
• We learn about celebrations and festivals such as Easter, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Divali etc.
• We look at how other people around the world live through cooking, objects, videos, stories.
What can you do at home to help?
• Encourage your child to bring in objects or photos when they attend a special occasion to talk to the class about.
• Talk to your child about your own beliefs – such as going to church, or mosque.
• Talk to your child about differences and similarities between yourself and other cultures through stories, cooking, toys etc. Children are introduced to a huge world of differences when they watch television and this provides opportunities for talk if your child asks questions.
